Differentiate or die, is the mantra of most service companies and nowhere is this more critical than in the e-commerce business. One way for online shopping companies to differentiate is by personalizing offerings and showing potential customers specific products or services targeted at them – a necessary but expensive proposition.

While giants like Amazon and Flipkart have built this expertise themselves, smaller competitors can now showcase the same capability, thanks to Targetingmantra, a start-up that has just raised $1.1 million from three investors -- 500Startups, Nexus Venture Partners and One97 Mobility Fund.

The one-year old company also has on its advisory board technology stalwarts such as Rajan Anandan, MD Google India, Ankur Wariko, head of Groupon Asia-Pacific and Gaurav Agarwal, former Farmville MD and is headquartered in Mountainview, California.

TargetingMantra analyzes multiple data sources including user behaviour across web, mobile and other places to showcase the most relevant information and products to a user, thereby improving user satisfaction and increasing conversion rates and revenues for e-commerce players.

“It is difficult for smaller players to do this in-house and they can now start offering recommendation without waiting to hire a team and setting up the system,” Saurabh Nangia, the New-Delhi based founder of Targetingmantra told Yourstory.

Saurabh is well-placed to help online shopping portals achieve this, having built Amazon’s similarities engine from scratch to replace their existing system responsible for generating recommendations.

The company has set up a common SAAS platform across multiple user, he said, adding that though the platform is common, the data isn’t shared. Its main offerings involve targeted emails, browser personalization, which showcases specific products when a user browses through the website and targeting through mobile apps.

The products are focused not only on retaining customer interest but also on increasing the order value, which together add up to about 20 percent increase in the website’s revenue, said Saurabh.

“Intelligent use of data is the future of everything on-line and mobile,” said Naren Gupta, Co-founder & MD, Nexus Venture Partners, “An ability to customize product offerings, news and other information while protecting privacy is the holy grail of e-businesses worldwide”.

Online companies such as Zanzaar, Bluestone, Healthkart and babyoye are using its services, according to Targetingmantra’s website. It already has customers in U.S., Brazil, Singapore, Thailand and Japan and focus now will be to expand their global footprint.

“With this funding, we will be focusing on hiring, expanding the team, opening new offices and also on building the product and making it easier to integrate,” said Saurabh.

The potential in India alone is huge. The country’s ecommerce market is estimated to have reached about $10-16 billion last year, with an annual increase of 88% per year and analysts project that by 2020 it could be worth $60-80 billion.

And with help from experts such as Targetingmantra, the biggest beneficiaries would be us, the online consumers who are already spoilt for choice, isn’t it? Let us know what you think here